Hasidic Judaism began with a beloved teacher, the Baal Shem Tov, who taught that God is found in joy and prayer.
Judaism1740sgrew out of Rabbinic Judaism
Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, began teaching in Podolia in the 1740s: joy, fervent prayer and devotion to a rebbe over scholarship alone. Fiercely opposed at first by the Vilna Gaon and the Mitnagdim, Hasidism became one of the great forms of traditional Judaism and today sits within the Haredi world, in dynasties such as Chabad, Satmar, Belz and Ger.
Hasidic Judaism began in the 1740s in what is now Ukraine, with a teacher called the Baal Shem Tov, who taught that God can be found in joy and in ordinary life, and that a simple Jew praying with a full heart is as dear to heaven as a scholar.
Israel ben Eliezer, known as the Baal Shem Tov, the master of the good name, healed and taught among poor Jews in Podolia and left almost nothing in writing; his teaching reaches us through his students 10,6. What he offered was not a new law but a new emphasis: that God's presence fills the whole world, so that eating, working and walking can be acts of service, and that joy rather than gloom is the right way to approach heaven 6,9,1. After his death in 1760 his disciple Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezritch, turned a circle into a movement, training students and sending them out to lead communities of their own 11,6.
Those students became rebbes, and their followings became courts that passed from father to son, so that Hasidic Judaism today is a family of dynasties named for the towns they came from: Chabad from Lubavitch, Satmar from Szatmár, Ger from Góra Kalwaria, Belz, Vizhnitz, Breslov and many more 9,7. The movement was fiercely opposed at first. The Vilna Gaon, the greatest Talmudist of the age, and the scholars around him issued bans against the Hasidim from 1772, objecting to their prayer, to what they taught about their leaders and to their departures from custom, and the two camps excommunicated one another before eventually making common cause against secularising currents in the nineteenth century 16,17,9. The Holocaust destroyed this world in Europe. The courts were rebuilt after the war by survivors, above all in Brooklyn, Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, and also in London, Antwerp and Montreal 9,7.
The movement's first century was spent under attack from other Jews. The bans issued from Vilna from 1772 forbade marriage with Hasidim and the eating of their meat, books were burned, and both camps informed on the other to the authorities of the day 16,17,9. Then the Holocaust destroyed the Hasidic world of Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and Romania, killing the great majority of the movement's people and most of its rebbes. Every court alive today was rebuilt from a remnant 9,7.
Hasidic Jews keep the whole of Jewish law as other Orthodox Jews do. What sets them apart is an emphasis: that God fills everything, that serving God should be done with joy and fervour, and that a rebbe guides his followers in how to do it.
The teaching draws on Kabbalah and puts it within reach of people who are not mystics. If God's presence fills all creation, then nothing is outside the service of God, and a person's ordinary acts can be lifted into it, which is why Hasidic teaching turns so often on the verse that tells us to acknowledge God in all our ways 1,6,19. Prayer is meant to be fervent, sometimes loud, sometimes with movement and song, and joy is treated as a duty rather than a mood 1,9.
The rebbe, or tzaddik, is the movement's distinctive institution: a leader who teaches, advises on ordinary decisions, prays for his followers and is understood to lift their prayers with his own 9,6,7. That is precisely what the movement's opponents objected to, and the objection is still made by other Orthodox Jews 17,16. Within Hasidism the schools differ. Chabad, founded by Shneur Zalman of Liadi, whose book the Tanya is studied daily by its followers, works through the intellect and has sent emissaries to Jewish communities across the world 2,12,4. Breslov follows Nachman of Breslov, who taught solitary conversation with God in one's own words and left no successor, so that his followers have no living rebbe 3,13,5.
Worship and practice
Prayer in a Hasidic community is long, loud and full of movement. Beyond the services there is the tish, the rebbe's table on the Sabbath, where hundreds of men gather to sing, hear a teaching and take a piece of food from his hand.
Services follow the traditional order with a Hasidic prayer book, in a version of the rite that Hasidism adopted from the mystics of Safed, and men sway, clap and sing at length 9,7. Song without words, the niggun, carries much of the devotion, and Hasidic melodies have travelled far beyond the movement 9,6. The Sabbath and festivals are the centre of the week and the year, and the great gatherings of a court, at a tish or a wedding or the anniversary of a rebbe's death, can fill a hall with thousands 9,7. Daily life is ordered by Jewish law as in any Haredi community, with separate schooling, distinctive dress that often preserves eighteenth-century eastern European clothing, and Yiddish spoken at home in many courts 9,8.
Scripture and Bible translations
Hasidic Jews read the Hebrew Bible as other Orthodox Jews do, with the traditional commentaries. What is added is a library of Hasidic works that read the same verses for what they say about the inner life.
The Tanya, published by Shneur Zalman in 1797, sets out a whole account of the soul and of serving God, and Chabad Hasidim study a portion of it every day 2,12. Likutei Moharan gathers the teachings of Nachman of Breslov, whose readings of verses are famous for turning a phrase into a path through despair 3,13. These works and dozens like them are read alongside Torah and Talmud rather than instead of them, and the whole Hasidic library is now online and searchable 1. Read here: the pointed Hebrew of the Leningrad Codex, the Modern Hebrew Bible, and the JPS translation of 1917. The versions guide sets out what each Jewish movement reads.
In synagogue
In many synagogues, the Torah is chanted from a handwritten Hebrew scroll and a haftarah is read from the Prophets. Common English-language study and pew editions include the ArtScroll Stone Edition in Orthodox settings, Etz Hayim in Conservative settings and The Torah: A Modern Commentary (Plaut) in Reform settings. Local practice varies.
At home
The Jewish Publication Society describes its 1985 JPS Tanakh, produced with scholars from several Jewish movements, as the most widely read English translation of the Hebrew Bible. Orthodox readers also use Koren and ArtScroll editions.
Hasidic
Hasidic communities read Hebrew first and, in English, the ArtScroll Tanakh and, in Chabad, the Kehot Chumash.
Reconstructionist
Reconstructionist congregations use the JPS translation and the movement's own Kol Haneshamah prayer books.
Karaite
Karaite Judaism gives the Hebrew Bible authority independent of the rabbinic Oral Torah. The Westminster Leningrad Codex provides a digital form of the Masoretic Hebrew text, but it should not be treated as a uniquely Karaite edition.
These passages illustrate themes discussed in this profile; they are not a survey of members' favorite verses. Each is quoted from the JPS TaNaKH 1917 and links to its chapter. You can explore the text for study or personal reflection; memorization is optional.
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.
Do not I fill heaven and earth? The verse behind the Hasidic conviction that there is no place empty of God, and so no ordinary moment that cannot become service.
The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth.
The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon Him. Why a simple Jew's prayer was held to reach as high as a scholar's.
People
Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tovabout 1698 to 1760 Healer and teacher in Podolia who left almost no writing and whose emphasis on joy, prayer and the presence of God in everything began the movement.10
Dov Ber of Mezritchabout 1704 to 1772 The Maggid, who took a circle of followers and made it a movement by training students and sending them out to lead their own communities.11
Shneur Zalman of Liadi1745 to 1812 Founded Chabad and wrote the Tanya, which set Hasidic teaching out as a system to be studied rather than only felt.12
Nachman of Breslov1772 to 1810 Great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, teacher of solitary prayer in one's own words and of stubborn hope; he named no successor, and his followers have had no rebbe since.13
Joel Teitelbaum1887 to 1979 Rebbe of Satmar, who survived the Holocaust and rebuilt his court in Brooklyn as the largest Hasidic community in America, holding that a Jewish state before the Messiah is forbidden.15
Menachem Mendel Schneerson1902 to 1994 The seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, who sent emissaries to open Chabad houses in more than a hundred countries and made his movement the most visible face of Hasidism.14
Today
Hasidic communities are among the fastest growing in the Jewish world, with large families and their own schools, and are concentrated in New York, Israel, London, Antwerp and Montreal. Yiddish is a living daily language in many of them.
Pew found in 2020 that 11 percent of American Jewish adults under thirty are Haredi, against 1 percent of those over sixty-five, and Hasidic families are much of that difference 8,9. Chabad is the most widely encountered, running centres in more than a hundred countries that serve Jews of every kind and none, which makes it unusual among Hasidic groups in facing outward 4,14. Satmar, Ger, Belz, Vizhnitz and Bobov are larger in their own neighbourhoods and mostly face inward, and Satmar's two branches in Brooklyn and Kiryas Joel are between them the largest Hasidic group in America 18,9,7. The courts differ sharply over Israel: Satmar holds that a Jewish state before the Messiah is not permitted, while other Hasidic groups take part in Israeli life and politics 15,9. Yiddish, which the Holocaust nearly ended as a spoken language, survives chiefly because Hasidic children grow up speaking it 9,7.
Words to know
rabbi
A teacher of Torah. The word means my master. After the Temple fell, rabbis became the leaders and judges of Jewish communities, and they still lead synagogues today.
Torah
The first five books of the Bible, and more broadly the whole of God's teaching. A Torah scroll is read in every synagogue.
Talmud
The Mishnah together with the rabbis' discussions of it over the next three centuries. The Babylonian Talmud, completed about 500 CE, is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism.
halakhah
Jewish law: the way to walk, worked out from the Torah by the rabbis. It covers prayer, food, the Sabbath, business and family life.
synagogue
A house of gathering where Jews meet to pray and hear the Torah read. It grew up during and after the exile, alongside the Temple, and outlived it.
Messiah
Hebrew for anointed one. In the Second Temple period many Jews hoped for a king sent by God to set Israel free; Christians hold that Jesus is the Messiah, which is what Christ means in Greek.
Shabbat
The seventh day, from Friday sunset to Saturday nightfall, kept as a day of rest because the Torah commands it in the Ten Commandments; Jews light candles, bless wine and bread, and do no work. Christians who keep a Sabbath on Saturday, such as Seventh-day Adventists, use the same commandment.
The spiritual leader of a Hasidic court, distinct from a rabbi who rules on law. A rebbe teaches, advises followers on ordinary decisions from marriage to business, prays for them and, in Hasidic understanding, lifts their prayers with his own. The position usually passes within a family 9,6,7.
Are Hasidic Jews Orthodox?
Yes. Hasidic communities keep Jewish law fully and sit within the Haredi part of Orthodoxy. The difference from other Haredi Jews is emphasis and institution: the joy and fervour the Baal Shem Tov taught, the mystical teaching, and the court gathered around a rebbe 9,7,6.
Why the clothes and the Yiddish?
Both are kept deliberately. The dress preserves the clothing of eastern Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and marks a community apart; Yiddish is the language the communities of Europe spoke, kept for daily life while Hebrew is reserved for prayer and study. Hasidic families are the main reason Yiddish is still a mother tongue 9,7.
What is the difference between Chabad and other Hasidic groups?
Chabad works through study and reason as a route into the mystical teaching, and it faces outward: its emissaries run centres for Jews of any background in more than a hundred countries. Most other courts, Satmar and Ger among them, concentrate on their own communities 4,14,9.
Do Hasidic Jews support the State of Israel?
They differ. Satmar holds that a Jewish state established before the Messiah comes is not permitted, and its followers do not take part in Israeli elections. Other Hasidic groups live in Israel, vote and sit in the Knesset through Haredi parties. The disagreement is old and unresolved 15,9.
Sources
Numbered references link the account above to its sources. These include the tradition's own documents and outside reference works. The review status below distinguishes source checking from completed member and scholarly review.
BibleVerse. “Hasidic Judaism: where they came from, what they hold, and the Bible they read.” bibleverse.site, version 2026-09-07, https://bibleverse.site/denominations/hasidic/
Awaiting review by a member of the tradition. First published 2026-09-07; last changed 2026-09-07. Years before the common era are written BCE, and after it CE, as Jewish readers write them.
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